Conan! What is best in life! Part 1

i've been doing a lot of soul-searching and thinking and praying (well, not as much praying; i haven't actually been praying all that much, but it's coming back to me) about the question offered to the group of elders in this conversation: 

"What is best in life?"

Conan the Barbarian gives a short version of Genghis Khan's answer - "The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters." 

Don't tell me you've never considered that that is what is best in life. No, I know, you don't mean kill and pillage. Except in the movies. To have our heroes do it for us vicariously is acceptable. But I'd never do that in real life. 

 ... Come on, y'all - we ALL WANT THIS. At least somewhat. 

To defeat those who aggravate you. To correct those who deserve correction because they are wrong, evil, misguided, foolish, destructive. To create the kind of world you think the world should be because it is right and everyone should get on board. To convert the ignorant. To crush the irritating. 

Yes? Anyone? 

Hell, if nobody else will raise her or his hand, I will. I want this. 

I tell myself I don't. That I'm a compassionate, kind person. And I am. It's true. 

And ... honestly ... there are some things that I want destroyed. Crushed. I want them defeated. 

I would say it's because I see that they are wrongs which should be made right. But it's mostly because they hurt me and hurt what I love, and I'm sad/ mad/ hurt and I want it to stop. 

AND ... a lot of it is just self-loathing because I tell myself that I am too weak to keep it from happening. So I either lash out and knock stuff over (and then feel sorry), or stuff it and brood (and then feel sick). 

The longer I sit in that stuck place, the sicker I get. 

I have other options - including - get up, walk outside, breathe, stand on the earth amidst infinite organisms, and get some fuckin' perspective. 

So, what IS best in life? 

Thanks, Conan the Barbarian, for the therapy! 

coffee's for closers only

sometimes there are touchstones. they can teach me who i am and who i am not. how i react to them and what i think of them is the mirror which reveals all things.

not politics; not religion. not beatles vs. stones. i'm talking about the soul. try this one:

how someone treats animals, children, old people, servers, and anyone with a lack of obvious power. if you're kind to them - really kind - when no one is looking - then you have love inside you. if you're mean to them, you have work to do and you'd better do it because time is short.

here's another.

if you are repulsed by what Alec Baldwin's character is saying in this monologue, you are one kind of person. if you are energized by and agree with what Alec Baldwin's character is saying in this monologue, you are another kind of person.

I'm not talking about whether you like his performance; i love it; i am mesmerized by it. David Mamet's language is blistering and beautifully written.

No, i mean, if you can see that what Baldwin's character is saying is everything that is wrong in the human condition, then you're okay. and if you can't see that - if you believe there is any justification for his worldview - then, i am convinced, that you are in trouble. hit the bricks pal and beat it because you are going out.

enjoy.

happy new etc

i don't believe in new year's resolutions. not because i think it's a bad idea; it's a great idea.
but i'm not the most brilliant person on earth in terms of follow-through. the ADD joke about the person talking about something important and then turning away suddenly to chase a butterfly or a bunny? that's me.
for years i thought it was because there was something wrong with me. that i was, as the first of my stepfathers called me, a dumbass.
i thought everybody else understood something except me.
and i tried and tried for decades. "i'm going to start running." "i'm going to read the bible every morning." "i'm going to get in shape." "this time i'm going to get my shit together."
it didn't work. like, at all.
it never worked for me. and i have felt a lot of shame and fear around that in my life. a LOT. like, crippling amounts of "what is wrong with me?" because i would have a good, solid plan about how to do something, finish something, follow through with something. and it's just agonizingly hard.
you know how some people are terrified to get up and speak in public? not me. it's easy.
you know how some people are afraid to talk about their feelings? not me. i barf it out all the time.
but facing a project - working out a list and following if this, then this to various conclusions, finishing something? nope. terror.
other people would say, "Oh, come on - it's not that hard." but if you don't know that terror, you don't get it. and i worked on it, for decades, like working on a phobia -
and i can do it. give me a project, and i can work it. i can go from point A to point B to point C. i can finish things. but it's not natural, it's not easy, and it does NOT work better if i just pick myself up and try harder. i have to slow down, and breathe, and take my time, and trust, and let go.
so, i stopped making new year's resolutions - or any resolutions - any "i resolve to" pronouncements - not because i wasn't sincere; i was the most sincere person on earth - it was because i tried and tried and couldn't stick with them.
here's the thing:
i have, in many ways, had the cute notion of "hope" kicked out of me. worn down. i don't much believe in it anymore. not that i don't believe people's lives can't improve or that people can't find freedom and peace and wholeness - i do believe that, i count on it, i work toward it, i am dedicated to it.
but i don't believe if we try hard enough, it will all get better. because there's always another asshole, always another blind spot, always another landmine, always another shock.
INSTEAD,
i believe in and am learning to practice something that i believe is realistic and good:

• i don't have to do everything. there is very little i need to do. 
• there is very little i CAN do. 
• i pick a few things, and do them. 
• i try to serve, and help. learn. grow. rest. repeat. 
• i give myself lots of grace.
• i am learning to say "no," as in, "no, i won't do that for you" ... including saying that to myself. 

it's a slow process. there is no hurry.

love, mom

it's the one-year anniversary of my mother, mary ann's, death. i've been spending lots of time in the last year thinking about, and writing about, and looking at, her. she was ... complicated. i really, really loved her, and we had great times and also some very hard times. i suppose in some ways that's true of everybody out there, though mary ann was an especially mercurial, high-and-low, volatile human being.
when she loved or believed in something, it was with great passion and dedication and even obsession. and ... when she was mad, look out, because words and furniture would fly and people would get hurt and she could be vicious, physically and emotionally. i've been wondering whether she knew that about herself, or could face it about herself; i think that she didn't - couldn't - because it scared her too much. but she was also capable of great tenderness and loyalty. she wanted so much to be a good person.
like i said, complicated.
i wish you nothing, nothing, nothing but peace and love, dear broken beloved beautiful child of god.
and i know that where you are now, you are experiencing nothing but peace and love. i am happy for you. happy that you are reunited with your mother and father, your relatives, your hopes and dreams, and God.

here's to you, mary smith, mary ann diamond, mary ann willingham, mary ann harper, maryann severn. mary ann. grandmother. "m." mom.

here are some of my favorite pictures of her among the ones i've been scanning this past year:

that's me in the tarzan suit, with mary ann (mom) and richard (dad). i like mary ann's cat-eye glasses!

mary ann, my sister stacy, and me. 1980ish

mary ann and me outside our apartment complex, 1978ish

mary ann, smiling, opening presents

wedding dress, first wedding, 1960

oh there's no place like home for the holidays

 oh, there's no place like home for the holidays. check out the different christmas tree looks from different phases of my childhood. 

do you have similar stories / xmas looks? 

1962. in a freakin' awesome christmas outfit. and yes, it's an aluminum tree, painted/flocked white.

1963. i am a physician and i also operate a train.

1968. 6 months after we left the first dad and moved to another town. 

that picture's not posed or anything. 

isn't my sister ADORABLE????!!!

1970. can't remember if we'd moved in with the next dad or not. the tree look continues to evolve and be more organic. think macrame, velvet, and styrofoam chrismons made at church. 

 1975, 6 months after we left the next dad and moved to yet another town. i'm 14. not at an awkward age or anything. 

notice that the tree, like all of american culture in the 70s, continues to evolve as it attempts to figure out how to move from mod to groovy to awakened and hip but is just a mish-mosh. 

which also describes my shirt. 

my awesome sister stacy and i, continuing to have fun fun fun. we live in a craphole apartment, and we're poor, and we're at yet another new school, and we're wearing knockoff clothes, and our home life is less than optimal - but you'd never know it because we are great at holding it together and being happy little diamonds. what else WOULD we do? - wait, it just occurred to me. we could've done LOTS of other things. hoodlums. juvenile delinquents. kleptomaniacs. ho-bags. addicts. and so son. crap. some of those might've been fun.

no bethel photos

for a few years when i was in what was then called junior high school (all i hear nowadays is "middle school"), my family was part of a church / community / cult (?) named Bethel. meaning "House of El," or, "House of God." 


perfectly generic biblical name. but ... the balls it took pastor Vernon to name his startup church that? wow. 


this is how i've described the Bethel experience in a previous blog entry: 

I am 14 or 15, part of a charismatic faith community, a nerdy kid without many friends, living in a cobbled-together house outside a small agricultural city in far South Texas; I take a Bible to school every day – to junior high, a highly predatory environment – and I have bad skin and thick glasses. ... In Bethel’s worship services, there's a lot of dancing, Woodstock-esque head-swaying and hand-raising (I won't look back and see that connection until decades later), a lot of hopeful faces raised to the ceiling; there's triumph, there's revelation, men get visions and speak them aloud while the music plays for long periods of time, trance-like music that then winds down while [pastor] Vernon ascends the steps, climbs behind the podium, and speaks for God.

so, i have been going through our family's old photos and scanning them, cataloguing them, writing about them. 

there are no photos from the Bethel years. 

there are a few of just family during those couple of years, and a trip we took, but none of Bethel friends, Bethel get-togethers, Bethel worship. 

it may be that it was a time during which my mother's and stepfather's marriage was splintering and falling like a building being dismantled by strategic and random explosive charges going off not all at once, but over time. who wants to take happy snapshots during that, while we're all barely holding on? i get it.

it may be that it was a time during which there was just not much extra to go around - no extra time, no extra money, no extra energy, no extra emotional or mental energy. and when there's not enough, you don't waste money on non-essentials. 

i wondered for a second whether my mom, in the years after we left that husband, that town, and that church/community/cult, took any pictures out and burned them on principle, though i doubt it - because she kept pictures of husband #1, and she kept pictures of husband #2, and lots of places along the way that had been unpleasant and weird. 

it occurs to me that that life at Bethel just was too ... odd, too otherworldly, for regular cute family/friends smile-at-the-camera let's-capture-this-neat-moment. 

like the stereotype that native peoples don't want the outworlders to take their picture because it steals some of their soul or blurs the boundary between their sacred insular world and the tainted outer world. Bethel prided itself - and selectively quoted scripture sprinkled into daily conversation and public self-definition, like a slogan or corporate motto, to support this sense of itself - that it constituted "a separate priesthood." that it was to "be in the world but not of the world." that its people were to "hate the world" and "hate mother and brother and sister for [jesus'] sake." they weren't corporate, cubicle people. 

they had jobs - sort of; i was 13, 14 years old so i didn't have the whole story on the adults, so this is fragmentary, but:

i don't remember any of the women working outside the home. 

i do remember scott, one of the leaders of the church, worked as a carpenter / construction worker. i think. or something like that. 

i remember another guy, named steve (i think), full of life, feisty, liked talking to anyone, who would hitchhike and find work doing whatever. he said it gave him the chance to share jesus with people. my stepfather and i were in glenn/dad's truck one day and glenn/dad said, "who is that dumbass that's hitchhiking?" and i said, "it's steve!" and glenn said, tone changing immediately, "well, praise the lord!" and pulled over so we could hear steve's story about what god had done today. 

i would love some photos of those guys. used-to-be-drug-addicted-but-now-jesus-addicted countercultural young adults, high on life, following the original hippie, jesus. and his appointed representative, vernon. 

the unmarried women lived in a large house, with one of the leaders and his wife. 

the unmarried young men lived in another large house, with vernon (the pastor) and vernon's wife. i felt like nobody yet; i was still in junior high, but i wanted to be like the big men so that i could hang out at vernon's house with the guys.

no pics. of anybody at either house. 

i looked in the photo albums specifically for snapshots from a few times the bethelites come out to our farmhouse way outside town. 

one occasion was a workday at our place - like an amish barn-raising, except it's to clean stuff, build stuff, and prop stuff that's falling down. there's food, and people sweating and laughing and singing, and i am so excited. at the end of the day i'm hanging with my friend who's maybe two or three years older than me. he has terrible asthma problems. the elders have prayed and prayed with him, but he doesn't get better, and his parents have to resort to taking him to the doctor, which is frowned upon. everyone says that maybe this kid's, or his parents', prayers aren't right somehow, or else he'd be healed. 

anyway, he puts his arms around my shoulders. we're both shirtless and sweaty and tired and satisfied, sitting on the lawn of the house, everyone packing up and hugging and saying goodbye after a long day of serving the Lord by serving others. 

i'd love a snapshot of that in the family photos, but there's none. 

remind me to tell you what happened the other time the bethelites came out to our house, the afternoon/evening they drove satan's demons out of the pictures on our walls and had us take everything that wasn't of god out of our house and burn it in the driveway. 

i don't have any pictures of that visit either. 

continue to emerge, but also get some sleep

for years, i cared deeply about what would become known as the emergent church or emerging movement or postmodern christianity etc, with all its offshoots like urban monasticism and creative / interactive worship and narrative / relational theology and ... and so on. i went to conferences. i heard amazing speakers. i read all kinds of books and blogs and emails, i led some conference sessions, wrote some articles, and i made friends with lots of people.
it was lovely. and i still care. a lot.

i was doing this because of a sincere hope for the possibility of what christianity could become.
what i didn't realize was that, in my case, i was also doing this because of a hope for what i personally could become.
i needed hope. i had been a college english teacher for a decade, and then had felt called / nudged / driven to become a pastor-teacher and serve god. so, i went to seminary. quit my job. took a job at a church. full of hope, full of new possibilities.
i hadn't been prepared for the reality that The Church is just as fucked-up as any other human institution - just as full of politics, greed, consumerism, pettiness, agendas, and "sin" as the colleges where i had worked and the businesses where i had worked and so on. so, that was a shock. and churches pretend that they aren't what they are, which is also tough to find out. like, heartbreaking.
and, too, i dragged in, mostly without realizing it, my own shit - my own deep need to please people, and be heroic, and "make a difference in the world," and "live out my faith," and create healthy systems  and really live like jesus told us to. all of which is good. except that i didn't see myself, my own need to fix it. whatever "it" was.
so, after a few years of working way too hard, for way too little money, in stressful and complicated and depressing hierarchies local and regional (i can tell you stories some time if you like - the senior pastor who wrote "Rick Diamond Controller" on a nerf bat and brought it to staff meetings, and so on), i burned so far out that i said to god, "get me out of here or do something to help me."
and i happened to meet some people who were learning about and trying to create this new thing within american christianity.
i jumped at it. read books. went to grad school, again, this time because i was convinced this new thing wouldn't be like the old thing. took a job at a church in austin that assured me that it wanted new blood, new possibilities, that i should bring my ideas and my passions and make a difference.
you can probably guess how that turned out.

i learned a lot - mostly about myself, but also some about the church.
i learned that it's not good for me, personally, nor is it good for anybody else, for me to be heroic and amazing and to over-function and overwork and sacrifice my sanity and soul in order to make a difference in the world.
i got sick. that's nobody's fault, and nobody did it to me but me.
it didn't, and doesn't, help that churches - traditional and emerging - have a weird unconscious dynamic about pastors being not-real-human-beings. but i don't blame the church anymore. it doesn't know that it's doing it.
and that has been my truest salvation, though it wasn't what i was hoping for: to surrender, to let go, to give up ambition, to accept that i created my path and to allow god to work rather than me overworking. just do my little part in the church, the world, the kingdom of god. to accept that doing a small thing is more than enough. to embrace smallness and insignificance.
but i have been an addict for so long that to continue to unlearn my addiction to the message of success and significance and work and awesomeness ... well, one day at a time, as they say.
i like that the faith community of which i am a part continues to choose to be small and insignificant at least as the world measures it. i feel better. i can sleep better at night. usually.
i'm about to turn 51 years old. i am not a young man anymore. that's very comforting. seriously.

i also don't think it's good for churches or for The Church to be heroic and amazing and to over-function and overwork and sacrifice their souls in order to do whatever their particular thing is that they feel called to do. it makes them sick.

i still love the new things that are emerging in christianity. i still believe in them. i want to help where i can. i believe in god doing truly revolutionary beautiful things. reformation is good. renewal is good. tearing down and rebuilding is good.
just don't burn out, okay? and if you do, just know you're in good company. and some of us on the other side will be here to hang out and let you know you're not crazy, and it's okay, and you didn't do anything wrong. and to sit with you as you ask yourself questions about how you ended up here and what you were trying to learn and what to do now that it's just about you after all.